You'll find it on page 1259 if
you have a few Bibles. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. I want
to begin reading at verse 12. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse
12. We commend not ourselves again
unto you, but give you occasion to glory on our behalf that ye
may have somewhat to answer them which glory in appearance, and
not in heart. For whether we be beside ourselves,
it is to God. Or whether we be sober, it is
for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth
us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're
all dead. And that he died for all, that
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto
Him which died for them and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know
we no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after
the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more. Therefore
if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have
passed away, and behold, all things are become new. And all
things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ,
and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit, that
is to say, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed
unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you
in Christ's stead, on Christ's behalf, be you reconciled to
God. For He has made Christ to be
sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. My subject this morning, I'd
like to think upon this just for a few minutes with you. Constraining
love. constraining love. Paul begins
here in verse 14. Some had obviously been saying
about him that he was insane. He's beside himself. And Paul
was a very passionate man. He was a very warm-hearted man.
He was preaching to Felix, the governor, and preaching very
passionately to him. He said, Paul, you're insane. You're beside yourself. Much
learning has made you mad. Well, that's what the world thinks
about the warm-hearted Christian, isn't it? But you take a warm-hearted,
zealous Christian, and sometimes other Christians think that about
you. You're just too zealous. You're too warm-hearted. You
know what this world wants out of Christianity. They want Christians
to come here on these four walls, sit down and worship, and when
you go out those doors, leave Christ here. Leave His gospel
here. Don't take Him out there where
they're at. Don't take Him back home with you. Don't take Him
to the community. Don't take Him on your job. Don't
take Him on vacation. Leave Him here. And sometimes
when you go out and you're warm-hearted and you're zealous for the Lord,
and your head over heels in love with Him, they say, that man's
mad. That man is insane. You know
they even said that about Christ Himself. He was preaching to
a huge congregation one time and the crowd got so big some
of His friends tried to lay hold on Him, said He is beside Himself. He is just beside Himself. That
is what they said about the Apostle Paul here. But Paul said if we
be beside ourselves, know this, if we are insane like they say,
then we are insane for God's glory. We are beside ourselves
for His glory. Then He goes on to say whether
we be sober, if we be sober, if we be moderate, if we be more
reserved or quiet, He said, it is for your good. It is for your
good. So the Apostle Paul is saying
whatever the world or whatever anyone says about me and about
my disciples here with me, Whether they say I'm insane or whether
they say I'm too withdrawn, it's one thing about it, he says,
everything we do and all the motives behind it and the manner
in which we do it, we do it for God's glory alone and for the
good of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we do
it, he said. Paul was a unique person. Boy,
when he was convinced of something, he put all of his heart in it. This man is amazing to me. I
mean, when he was lost, when he was an unbeliever, he was
a true unbeliever. He didn't believe that Jesus
was the Son of God, the Messiah, and he did everything he could
do to stamp out his name. He believed Christianity was
a fraud. And he believed it with all of
his heart, and he tried to stomp it out in its infancy. He didn't
believe the gospel was of God, and he stood against it with
all his might. I mean to tell you, when he believed
something, he believed it with all of his heart. And he put
his effort into it, this man did. He said, You've heard of
my religion, the religion of the Jews that I had when I was
lost. Beyond measure I persecuted the
church of God and wasted it. Nobody could hold with this man
in persecuting the church. And he said, I hated Christ to
the point that I sought to do many things contrary to His name. And I did it. But you know something?
When the Lord saved him, When the Lord brought him by grace
to believe, I'm telling you, he believed with all his heart. And nobody, nobody was like this
man that I could find of all the Lord's apostles. Because
when he believed Christ, when he believed the Gospel was of
God, that it was the grace of Christ, he believed it with all
of his heart. And you saw it in that man's
actions. He said, I labored more abundantly
than they all did. And poor John Mark couldn't stay
with him. He went on one trip with him. He said, I can't take
this. This is too tough. This man is too dedicated. He's
got too much energy. Paul believed it with all his
heart. And brothers and sisters, do
you and I know any other apostle that labored for the glory of
Jesus Christ like this man did? Who suffered more, who went more
miles, and traveled more, and established more churches, and
preached a clearer gospel, and more faithful, and suffered more
in the cause of Christ than this man did. And you know why he
did it? Because when he believed, but he believed with all of his
heart. And the Jews could have witnessed this. These Pharisees,
they could have said this about this man. They saw him change. The Lord changed him right before
their eyes. They could have said to him,
now listen, that's just the way that man is. We know him. When he didn't believe in Christ,
he didn't believe with all of his heart, and he lived that
way. But when he says he believes in Christ, he believes Him with
all of his heart, and he lives that way. They could have said
that, but they wouldn't. They wouldn't. They were so amazed
when the Lord saved him. They said, Is this not Him that
persecuted us in time past? And did he not come here for
the same reason? The church there at Jerusalem
wouldn't even receive this man. They were afraid of him. They
said, surely he can't be converted. But he was. He was. And the reason they didn't believe
it, because Bud, when he didn't believe it, he didn't believe
it with all of his heart. But when he believed it, he believed
it with all of his heart. One of the reasons Paul said
the Lord Jesus saved him was to make him a pattern of his
long-suffering. I obtain mercy that first of
all in me, Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering
for a pattern to them which should believe on Him to life everlasting. What an awful sinner this man
was. What an awful blasphemer he was.
What an awful murderer he was and injurious to the church of
the Lord Jesus Christ. But there was long-suffering,
and there was grace, and there was love in the heart of Jesus
Christ to save this man. And that's why he said that he
was a pattern. Paul could find the greatest
wretch in his travels and sat down by him and say, Look here
now! Look here now! Let me tell you
what I have discovered in the heart of the Son of God. I have
discovered a depth of mercy that cannot be drawn out. I have discovered
a love that is incomprehensible to my soul. And if Jesus Christ
can save me, the chief of sinners, He can save you. That is what
He told everybody, wasn't it? I tell everybody that too, don't
you? I think it was William Jay, if my memory serves me, right
there in London. Him and John Newton were good
friends and they preached together a lot. And there was a drunk
in the community that everybody knew. He was a notorious drunk. And one day the Lord saved that
man. And William Jay got so excited, he ran to the office of Mr. Newton
and he said, Oh, Brother Newton, the Lord has saved that old drunk.
Can you believe it? He said, I'll never doubt the
Lord's ability to save a man again. And Newton said, Oh, dear
Brother Jay, I've never doubted it since He saved me. Don't you
feel that way? I tell people all the time, if
the Lord deals with you the way He deals with me, He'll save
you. And if He dealt with everybody the way He dealt with me, He'd
save everybody. If He can save me, He can save
anybody. And that's what the Apostle Paul
said. He's a pattern. What was it that filled this
man with so much zeal and commitment and love for the Lord Jesus and
His church? Why was He so faithful in preaching
the Gospel and doing so much good to the church of Jesus Christ
and the souls of men? Well, He tells us here in verse
14. Here is the reason, here is the
cause that He gives us of His actions. The love of Christ constraineth
us. The love of Christ constrains
me. I was looking up and studying
on this word constrained, and it has several meanings, and
all of them in themselves is a message. Let me give you four
meanings of this word. The first, it means to seize
or to arrest. To seize or to arrest. The love
of Christ has arrested me. It has laid hold upon me. It
has seized me. Now, what can we get out of that?
Well, we can see this and that. We go right back to the Apostle
Paul's conversion on the Damascus road when he was going to persecute
Christians there at Damascus, bring them back to judge them
and punish them. The Lord Jesus arrested him,
didn't He? He seized him in his road and
mad dashed to hell. He arrested him. And Paul became
a seeker of the Lord. For three days, we're told, he
prayed. The Lord said, He's praying.
He's seeking me. And brothers and sisters, I don't
know how that man was feeling in his conscience. I imagine
his heart was extremely burdened. He was astonished. He was amazed.
I don't know when exactly the Lord gave him the assurance that
He had forgiven him, that He had forsaken him. I don't know
when it was, when the scale fell from His eyes. I don't know when
the Lord gave him the assurance of salvation. But I know this
much. The Apostle Paul come to realize
this, that when the Lord arrested him on the road to Damascus, The wonderful thing about that
arrest, it was a seizure of love because pardon followed it. Pardon followed it. He arrested
him. He seized him on his mad dash
to hell and he seized him that he might forgive him. Isn't that
wonderful? The love of Christ constrains
me. Why am I so in love with Him? Why do I live for His glory?
Why do I keep going like I do? This love has seized me. It has
arrested my soul. There are some people, bless
their hearts, they are despaired to death of conviction. I guess
they're afraid the Lord's going to arrest them and damn them.
Every time they begin to see that they're rebels against God,
instead of admitting it, instead of owning it before Him, why,
they're scared to death. Scared of conviction. And the
reason they are, they don't realize that arrest comes before pardon. Sometimes you read In the paper
or you hear on the news, three fellas was seized in a
raid and they faced long prison sentences. You ever hear something
like that on the news? And you think, boy, those guys,
no wonder they were invading the law. They were evading the
law enforcement because they were scared to death of that
long sentence. But you know, when Christ arrests
a man, It's because He's going to pardon him. A man just coming
on up, on up. Yes, I'm a sinner. Yes, I'm ungodly. When the Lord Jesus arrested
Paul, what's the first thing He said of him, with him, and
to him? You know what's the first thing He did? He faced him with
these charges, didn't He? Saul, Saul, why do you hate me? Why is your heart full of hatred
towards me? And I tell you, he didn't deny
it, did he? He didn't say, Oh, I've never hated God a day in
my life. I'm not that bad. I'm a pretty good fellow. I know
I'm not perfect. He didn't, did he? The Lord confessed him with
his crime and said, You persecuted me, Saul of Tarshish. And boy,
there he was, shut up in that deed. And it was like standing
before the judge of all this earth. He was guilty. Lord, I'm
guilty. But you know what he said then?
I pardon all. I forgive all. A poor guilty sinner who is arrested
by Jesus Christ does not have to be afraid to admit all that
he has done and all that he is because a pardon is forthcoming. By the blood of thy covenant
I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no
water. Turn you to the stronghold, you
prisoners of hope. I tell you, when you become a
prisoner of Jesus Christ, He'll confront you with who you are
and what you are and what you've done. But I tell you, as soon
as He does, He'll forgive you. He'll pardon all. The death of
Christ, the love of Christ, it's been a resting thing. It seizes
us. Another meaning of this is this,
to be taken up with, to be preoccupied by. Paul said, the love of Christ
has taken up my thoughts. It occupies my memory. It fills
my affections. When trouble comes, when persecutions
and afflictions come, They don't get such a hold upon me that
they get me down because I'm taken up with the love of Jesus
Christ to my soul. When floods of worldly care break
in upon me, they don't take me away because I'm preoccupied
with the love of Christ. When I'm tempted to rest and
take my ease, And instead of suffering and going and doing
for Christ and His cause, I endure this temptation because I remember
the love of Christ for me. And listen to this, when I'm
burdened with the thoughts of the past and all my failure and
all my loss, when I'm burdened with my loss, all that I've lost,
I don't lean to despair. because I remember the love of
Christ in my soul." Oh, he was taken up with it. It filled his
memory, his thoughts, and his affection. Thirdly, this word
means this, to compel, to urge on with irresistible power. Now isn't that amazing? The love
of Christ urged him on. with irresistible power. There is a power in the love
of Christ that energized this man, his soul and his body. You want to turn over here, just
hold that passage and turn over here right quickly in the 11th
chapter. 2 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 23, look at this. And Wayne talked sometime about
Brother Don Fortner and how much energy that man has, and we wonder
how he does it. But no man ever had the energy
the Apostle Paul had. There was something driving that
man. There was something energizing not only his soul, but his body. I say that because look at what
he says about himself in verse 23. 2 Corinthians 11, 23. Are they ministers of Christ?
They say they are. These false apostles, they are
not. I speak as a fool. I am more. Look at this now. In labors, more abundant. In stripes, above measure. In
prisons, more frequent. In deaths, often. Of the Jews,
five times received I forty stripes, save one. Three times I was beaten
with rods. Once was I stoned. Three times
I was shipwrecked a night and a day I have been in the deep.
In journeyings often, in pearls of water, in pearls of robbers,
in pearls by my own countrymen, in pearls by the heathen, in
pearls in the city, pearls in the wilderness, pearls in the
sea, pearls among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness,
in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often,
in cold and neckiness, besides all of those things that are
without that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the
churches." Can you imagine? Just to sit and think upon those
things that he physically endured. And then who knew more of the
workings and strivings and labor of a man's heart than this man
did? He had a thorn in the flesh,
a messenger of Satan to buffet him. He fought with these principalities
and powers all the time. And he lived with a great measure
of joy about it all. Where did he get all of this
energy, this strength? What was it that compelled him
on? Well, he told us, the love of
Christ. Well, there's something about
it, and you've witnessed it, and I have too. Sometimes when
you're tired, and you say, man, I want to just go to bed. I know
I've got to preach down here. I've got to do this over here.
I've got to go visit over here, or whatever. Boy, these thoughts
get in your soul. Your spirit is cheered and energized
because you have a fresh view of the love of Christ for your
soul. And what do you do then? You
go, don't you? You do. You pray. Paul said,
the love of Christ. That's what it is. And fourthly,
this word means to hold together. The love of Christ holds me together. The knowledge of the love of
Christ to my soul, it holds me together. I tell you, it holds us together,
don't it? It holds us together. You know
why Christians sometimes, you know why real Christians have
fallen out? You know why their affection
towards one another sometimes grows cold? You know why that
is? There's one reason for it. It
can't be blamed on some doctrine. It can't be blamed because someone's
failed and won't forgive it. Here's what it can be blamed
on. Here's what it can go back to.
We have lost that fresh view of the love of Christ for our
souls. Now that's it. Paul said, this
is what holds us together. It holds my thoughts together.
Sometimes, did you ever think this about yourself? You're just
one half step from sanity. You think the next step you're
just going to go insane? What is it that holds you together? Your being, your faculties of
your mind. It's the love of Christ, is it
not? Paul said the love of Christ holds. me together, and it holds
us together. And you keep this in your heart,
the love of Christ, and I'm telling you what, you'll love your brothers.
And if you'll keep this thought upon your heart and in your affection,
you'll forgive them of just about anything they'll do to you or
anybody else. You'll forgive them. The love
of Christ holds us together. Back over in my text in chapter
5, notice the reason, the chief reason here, that Paul gives
for being constrained by the love of Christ. He says here
in the last part of verse 14, look at this. For the love of
Christ constrains us, because we thus judge. That means, Bud,
I've given some thought to this. You take a judge that's sitting
on his bench, he has to Deliberate. He has to look at some evidence,
doesn't he? And weigh everything out and
come to a conclusion. Paul said, I've judged this,
not hastily. This is something I've thought
on and reasoned out. And this is the conclusion that
I've come to. That if one died for all, then
we're all dead. and that he died for all that
they which live shall not henceforth live to themselves, but unto
him which died for them and rose again." And what does Paul attribute
this death of Christ to? His love. His love. He loved me. And he gave himself
for me. But it wasn't just the death
of Christ It was what he accomplished in that death. It's what he procured
in that death. To just say that Christ loved
me and gave himself for me and not know what he accomplished?
That's nothing there, is it? Just about everybody you run
into believes that Jesus of Nazareth died upon the cross. But they
have no idea what he accomplished. They have no idea what all that
is about. But Paul said, this is what won my affection to Him.
He not only died for me, but what He accomplished in His death. And he says it here in verse
18 and verse 19. He lists these two things that
Christ accomplished. And this is why He was so head
over heels in love with the Savior. He says in verse 18, all things
are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ. That is the first thing. He hath
reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ. Verse 19, To wit that
God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. And look
at this. This is the second thing. Not
imputing their trespasses unto them. Here we have two things
Christ accomplished in His death. And Paul saw the great love of
Christ in this. Reconciliation and forgiveness
of sins. That's everything, isn't it?
That's everything. This word reconciliation, it
speaks of restoration. There had been a falling out
between man and God. There had been an argument, a
division, a separation. And reconciliation had been made. And it was made at a great cost
to the Son of God. For He said there in verse 21,
here's the cost. Look at this. For God hath made
Christ to be sin for us who knew no sin. That's the cost of our
reconciliation. He hath reconciled us by His
death. Reconciliation and forgiveness
of sins. Why are these things so important?
Well, let me explain it like this. Let me deal with them just
quickly like this. You remember when Adam and Eve
was in the garden. What sweet fellowship they had.
Boy, you could go into that in chapter 1 and chapter 2 of Genesis. What fellowship God had with
His two creatures and what they had with Him. Wonderful love
and fellowship and communion. But when they sinned against
God, they saw that they were naked and they took these fig
leaves and they sewed them together and made themselves aprons to
cover their shame. And then they were there in the
garden, the evening and the cool of the day, they heard the voice
of the Lord walking towards them. And they hid themselves. They
hid among the trees of the garden. And God called unto him. The
Lord God said unto him, Adam, where art thou? And Adam said,
I was afraid, and I hid myself. You know what that word afraid
means? To be filled with dread. I was filled with dread, and
I hid myself among the trees of the garden. Why would he dread
God? Well, we know, don't we? He had
disobeyed. He had caused this breach. He
had caused this division, this separation. And now he had this
heart that dreaded the very presence of God. He didn't know that's
the way it was going to be. He clothed himself with these
fig leaves. He thought that's good enough until he heard the
voice. until he knew the presence of
the Lord. And then he was filled with dread
and hid himself. Isn't that our problem? Greg put a little track out on
the table out there, The Love of Christ, by Robert McShane.
And if there's any of them left, you need to get that and read
it. I can't remember everything he said, but he used this right
here in that track. He said the problem with man
is two things, two principal problems that he has. One, he dreads God. Because we know what we've done.
We know something about what we've done. We know there's this
division between us. And oh, when God begins to come
close, we dread His presence. And what does man do? Well, he
hides himself, doesn't he? He hides himself in the pleasures
of this world. He hides himself in the cares
of this world. He hides himself in religion.
Why? Because he dreads God. But there's
another problem this leads to. When a man lives in the dread
of God, something else happens to him. And you know what happens?
It leads to hatred of God. What did Adam do when the Lord
confronted him and said, Have you eat of that tree of knowledge
that I told you not to eat of? What did he do? He blamed God,
didn't he? It's not my fault. It's not even
the woman's fault. It's your fault. You gave me
this woman. It's your fault. He hated God. Isn't that our problem? We have
this awful dread of God. And we don't know how to get
around it. And when we get shut up to it, it makes us hate Him. Because we don't know how to
deal with the dread. How do we handle it? How do we
remedy this dread that we have? We don't know. So what do we
do? We get angry with God. Old Luther
lived this way for years. Martin Luther did. He shut himself
up in a monastery. He told one of the priests one
day, He just blurted it out. He said, I hate God. And the
priest was shocked. He said, I hate God. He said,
Martin, why do you hate God? He said, I hate Him because He's
just watching over us. He's just up there waiting for
me to mess up so He can blame me and accuse me and damn me. And you know what the priest
told him? He did tell him this. He said,
Martin, God is not angry with you. You're angry with Him. You
are angry with Him. And you hate Him. And that being said, how is this
breach fixed? How is this gulf filled up? How
is reconciliation to be made? And years where Paul said, I
see the love of God in this. Years where he saw the love of
Christ. Because Christ Himself took hold
of God. and the justice of God, and the
wrath of God, and He took hold of us poor sinners, and He brought
us together there at the cross of Calvary. Reconciliation has
been made by the blood and the sufferings and the death of the
Lord Jesus Christ. What does that mean for us? That
means that we don't have to dread God anymore. Why should I dread
God now? Why should I dread His presence?
Do I not believe in the Son of God, that He has made reconciliation,
that He has bore the wrath of God that I deserved, that He
has satisfied that law that I broke, that justice has wet itself And
that sword has pierced the side of the Lamb of God upon the cross.
And it has been resting. And God says, I am not angry
anymore. Oh, do you believe that? Here is what happens. And you
see it in yourself, dear believer. You see this in yourself. When
you begin to feel this dread. It rises up in your heart and
you begin to feel it. And you have these angry thoughts
against God. These thoughts of how you hate
Him. And you almost despise Him. Because you start thinking like
Luke. Oh, He's just seeking something against me. That He may judge
me and condemn me. And you get mad, don't you? You
get upset. And you hide yourself. And you
know what our whole problem is. We've got our eyes off of that
love that's in Jesus Christ. We've got our eyes off of Him.
We don't have to believe what we profess. Jesus Christ in great love to
our souls has reconciled us to God. God is not angry anymore. That's why the Apostle Paul comes
here and says to these believers, these new creatures in Christ.
He says, Be you reconciled to God. God is reconciled to you. Now you be reconciled to God. That is, believe Him. Believe
Him. I tell you to do that. But oh,
you're a believer in Christ. But it's not difficult to live
by that faith. You see all this sin in you.
Sometimes you have apprehensions of God's justice and His holiness,
and boy, you begin to think, Oh, I'm just afraid. Oh, I've
sinned. I can't go in this presence now.
Wait till I feel better. Don't we do things like that?
Paul said, Here's why I love Christ. I see how much He loved
me. I see how He's taken me to Himself. He's taken miserable me. He's
taken all my sin. He's taken on this controversy.
And He's dealt with it Himself. And He's closed the gap. He's
removed the enmity. He's reconciled me to God. God is now my Father, my everlasting
Father. And He's not angry with me anymore. Isn't that wonderful? And he
attributes it all to the love of Christ to his soul. He loved
me and reconciled himself to God. Me to God by the blood of
the cross. Paul said in Romans chapter 8
and verse 7, the carnal mind is enmity. And you know how long
it's going to be an enmity against God? It will be until it believes
in the Lord Jesus Christ that He has made reconciliation. There's no other way to remove
the enmity of any mind except in the cross. That's the only
way. Luther tried it by shutting himself
up in monasteries. laying naked on cold brick floors
in the wintertime, fasted himself almost to death, whipped himself
with whips, and that conscience only kept screaming at him. And
he dreaded God's presence and he hated God because of it until
he saw that Jesus Christ had reconciled him. But here's the second thing,
quickly. Not only that he's made reconciliation, But Paul said,
not imputing our trespasses unto us. In other words, he has forgiven
us. Forgiven us. What does this have
to do with being reconciled to God? Well, how can I come and
be reconciled to God unless I believe that He's forgiven
me of all my sins? It's impossible to fellowship
and commune with God with a guilty conscience, isn't it? You just
can't do it. So Paul says, here's what's won
my heart to Christ. Here's where I see His great
love. Not only has He made reconciliation
for me with God, but He has borne all my sins and now brought this
free and full forgiveness. God will not and He shall not
impute my trespasses to me. Romans 4, David said when he
made this statement about God not imputing sins, he said that
means He's forgiven us. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Blessed is the man whose transgression
is forgiven and whose sins are covered. I can talk about these things,
but I wonder if I have to believe them. We talk about them like Like
they're easy to believe, but I'm telling you they're not.
It's so difficult to believe these things, you can't believe
except through grace. I tell you so often about Richard
Wurmbrandt because I've been listening to him a lot lately
and some of his work that he did. He was the fellow that was
in prison there for so long in communist Russia. But he was
telling the story. He had gotten out of prison when
they finally freed him. And this one man had been a guard. Out of threatening him and coaching
him that they would give him all this stuff, he finally recanted,
denied the Lord himself. He had professed the Lord and
became a guard. Pretty rough fella. And they
came and got Wormbrant one night where he was staying and said,
one of the taverns and said he had been one of those guards
and he's a mess. And Wernbrandt went over there
and sat and talked with him and he's trying to drink hisself
to death. And he just sat there and murmured and mumbled under
his breath and drank and drank and drank. And Wernbrandt said,
what's your trouble? And he said, I just knew that
I was a believer in Christ. But he said, they broke me. They
got to me. And he said, I recanted and I
started being a guard and I was the one that did this to you
Christians and that. Well, I'd say I'd better be careful
before I judge him too harshly. I'm here in the security of a
safe place. What if I was there in the prison
and they threatened me and threatened my family and all? I don't know
what I may do, but this fellow joined in with them. And now
his conscience was eating him up. And he told Wernbrandt, he
started quoting things that he believed. And he said, I know
the doctrine of faith. He said, I know what our profession
says. And he said, I believe that Jesus
Christ was the Son of God. I believe He was virgin born.
I believe He lived without sin. I believe He died upon the cross
of Calvary. He rose and is seated on God's
right hand. And Wernbrandt stopped him and
said, listen, You have left out something very important. This
is also in the Apostles' Creed. And he said, I want to know if
you believe this too. I believe in the forgiveness
of sins. He believed everything else but
that. He forgot that. Brothers and sisters, let me
ask you this. Do you believe in the forgiveness
of sins? Paul said this, through this
man is preached unto you, the forgiveness of sins, all your
sins, those black sins, those red sins, those damnable, hell-deserving
sins. Through Jesus Christ is preached
unto you the forgiveness of all your sins. And by Him all that
believe are justified from everything. What does that mean to you? How
much does that mean to you? Oh, that means everything, doesn't
it? Oh, I've often said, if I can
leave here today with a God-given assurance in my soul that every
sin I've committed against heaven has pardoned, It will never be
held against me. It's gone. Oh, how would that
affect the way I live? How would that affect the way
I love the Lord? How would that affect the way
I loved you and lived my life? Oh, there's something about this
and I can't explain it. But Paul said, this is what motivates
me. This is what compels me. This
is what constrains me when I see what Jesus Christ has obtained
by Himself for my poor soul. You know what determines how
much you love? You know one of the things that
determines how much you love? is how much you comprehend of
the love of Christ for you. And the more you know in your
soul of how much He loves you, the more you will love yourself. We love Him. Why? Because He
first loved us. And love, love. When you see
yourself forgiven of all your sins, you can't help but love
Him. That woman came to the Lord Jesus there in Luke chapter 7. She was a harlot, I imagine.
She was a sinner in the town. Everybody knew it. She come and
got down at His feet and began to weep and wipe His feet with
the hair of her head. She was head over heels in love
with Him. And you know why? He told Simon. He said, This woman's sins, which
are many, are forgiven her. And then what did He say? He
that is forgiven much, he loves much. Why did Christ forgive
her? He loved her. He loved her. He loved her. What does that
have to do with reconciliation? until we see that our sins are
washed, that our sins are forgiven, that He is a forgiven God in
Christ. We cannot be reconciled to Him. Our minds won't allow it. But
here's what He says to us. Listen to this. I have blotted
out as a thick cloud your sins and as a cloud your iniquity. Listen. Return unto Me. for I have redeemed you." That's
what brings our reconciliation to Him. We see that He's already
reconciled to us. Oh, I could hang you over hell
this morning if God give me lips and a heart to do it. And I could
hang you there until you felt the heat of hell itself. Or I
could take you to Mount Sinai and you could sit at the bottom
of that mountain and you could feel the shaking in your soul.
And it may do many things for you. It may make you sell all
that you have and give it to the poor. Even give your body
to be burned. But I tell you what it cannot
do. It cannot change what's in your heart towards God. It cannot
arrest your affection. and make you love Him and live
for His glory. There's only this that can do
that. When you see the love of Christ. When you see what He's
done for your soul before God. That He stood as your representative.
He stood as your substitute. And all out of great love. That'll do it. Everything I've tried in this
world, and this has been my, I guess it's just the way I'm
made up. All through my teenage years, things got old to me so
fast. I just wanted things. My wife
can bear witness to this. I just wanted one thing. Wonder
hadn't got us in debt so much. Remember one time I wanted a
motorcycle? I wrote it for a while, and it
got so old, vanity of vanities. That's all I want, everything.
It wasn't like I got it great and kept it and wrote it. I got
tired of it. I got tired of everything. But there's one thing I've never
got tired of. There's one thing that got into the affections
of my heart, and instead of getting tired of it, I want more of it.
And that's the love of Christ for my soul. Old Solomon said, He took me
into His banqueting house, and His banner over me was love.
Oh, that's where we walk, isn't it? Under the banner of His love. That's where we live. That's
why we do what we do, because He loves us. And love is a motivating
force like nothing else. the love of Christ, it constrains
me. Let's pray.